O’Flaherty V.C. serves up lukewarm lunch show
Considering artistic director Tim Carroll’s dramatic changes to the Shaw Festival since he took over last year, it’s surprising to see the annual lunchtime production has survived the cut.
More often than not it’s the misfit show of the season — too short to make much impact, with the spectacular exception of Ferenc Molnar’s “The President,” which the company has done twice and could do every season, without complaint.
No, what you usually get is something like “O’Flaherty V.C.” another one of those Bernard Shaw quickies he banged off because something was gnawing at him. In this case, it was England’s clumsy attempt to recruit the Irish during the First World War. Posters were made depicting Irish soldier Michael John O’Leary, who killed eight Germans and captured two more near a village in France. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, and other Irishmen were urged to “emulate” his bravery.
But in Shaw’s 45-minute play, which first saw the stage in 1917 performed by officers of the Royal Flying Cops in France, the renamed O’Flaherty comes home feeling like a fraud. He’s no hero, he reasons, he just killed all those Germans because “I was afeard that if I didn’t they’d kill me.”
He didn’t join the war out of patriotism, but because it was a way out of Ireland. Whoever offered the better deal got his services. As far as his mother (Tara Rosling) knows, he was fighting against the English. She’s none too happy when she realizes what side he was really on (yes, she’d have preferred the Germans even).
Gabriella Sundar Singh, in her Shaw debut, makes a brief appearance as O’Leary’s gold-digging girlfriend, hoping he returns to battle and gets injured so she can collect a bigger pension.
There’s also General Pearce Madigan (Patrick McManus), who can’t understand why O’Flaherty isn’t revelling in his homecoming. To which O’Leary responds: “You’ll never have a quiet world ‘til you knock the patriotism
out of the human race.”
Director Kimberley Rampersand has a lot of words and a short amount of time to deal with, giving the show a crammed, manic pace that rarely allows a breath to digest it all. Some scenes are oddly rendered like a cartoon — the skies turn dark whenever Rosling cranks up the villainy, and there’s a weird fight scene near the end that’s like Shaw just throwing up his hands and saying “That’s all folks.”
So once again, a lunchtime show ends up undercooked. It may be time for the kitchen to rethink the menu.